Now that you’ve started a business, LAUNCH it

If you’ve learned the hard way that “if you build it, they will come” isn’t a strategy for getting people to your website, then you’re probably ready to try something else. Many social media experts espouse the “give and you shall receive” approach to marketing, but few provide the nitty-gritty details for making it work.

In his recently published book,  Launch: How to Quickly Propel Your Business Beyond the Competition, author Michael A. Stelzner offers a view from the top as well as from the trenches. He explains the business and psychology theories supporting his concept and digs deep into his own experience to show why it works. Then he provides step-by-step instruction and examples, so you can use these tactics to get your target audiences to notice and engage with your website.

At the end of this review, I’ll tell you how you can enter a drawing to win a free copy of Launch.

What does rocket science have to do with marketing?

As it turns out, propelling your business into success is a lot like launching a rocket. Stelzner calls his approach the elevation principle and even has come up with a clever scientific-looking formula that makes it easy to remember.

On the simplest level, his approach is based on giving away samples. Instead of handing out tiny pink spoons with a smidgeon of ice cream, however, we should publish bites and even larger servings of our expertise in the form of website content. And, most importantly, while we’re providing helpful, interesting content at no cost to our target audience, we have to be sure to avoid promoting ourselves.

The moment you stop mentioning your products and services by name is the moment you shift from being a salesperson to being an advocate.

Once you’ve become an advocate, you’ve earned your target audience’s trust, and they’ll have a more favorable response to your sales pitch. In fact, once you have their trust, you may not even have to deliver a sales pitch: your prospects already know they want to work with you or buy your products.

Compared to other marketing strategies you might try, giving away content is cheap. Still, publishing fresh, interesting and useful content on the Internet at no charge is a demanding task for small business owners. Stelzner makes this task much easier, providing detailed examples and instruction in ten different types of content, including:

• how-to articles
• expert interviews
• reviews
• case studies
• news stories
• surveys
• white papers
• contests

You’ll find Launch is well worth your time even if you end up hiring someone to create content for your site rather than doing it yourself. Gaining an understanding what kind of content attracts interest and builds trust will help you get the most out of the money you spend on developing your website.

While I heartily recommend Launch, I would have liked checklist summaries at the end of each chapter. There is so much useful information in each chapter, however, that the checklists probably would have been half as long as the chapters themselves.

Enter to win Launch!

If you’re interested in reaching a wider audience for your website, your first step is to enter my drawing for a free copy of Launch.

Leave a comment to today’s post and your name will be entered in the drawing. Be sure to leave a valid email address, as I will use that to notify you if you’ve won.  Also, shipping addresses in the continental U.S. only.

You have until July 6 to leave a comment. I’ll use a random number generator to select the winner, and announce who gets the book on July 7.

For more information about Launch: How to Quickly Propel Your Business Beyond the Competition, check the book website. Thanks to Mike Stelzner for providing the review copy and an extra for the giveaway.